


172. lonesome

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [159]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-06 21:28:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8769964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: Helena opens her eyes and Sarah is there. She still looks like every good thing Helena has never been able to be. She might even look more like that. Helena doesn’t think she really owns those boots.
I don’t, Sarah says. Cool, though, huh?





	

**Author's Note:**

> [warning: reference to torture]

Nights get corpse-cold in the desert, and the blanket that the soldier-boys have given Helena is thin. Also: it itches. Also: she’s starving, even though she ate everything on the tray. She’s cold and shaking and starving and all of these things will keep Pupok away, because Pupok only likes goading her when there’s something to gain from it. What could the scorpion do now? Make her cry? Pointless.

So she lies there, alone in the dark. When she closes her eyes she can hear soldiers moving around the camp; they’re drunk, so it must be a Friday. Two weeks, maybe. Maybe three. She misses Sarah – the way she smelled, like leather and exhaustion. The way she laughed. (Just once. Just one time.) The way she said

_Hey, meathead. Careful there, you’re gonna freeze to death._

Helena opens her eyes and Sarah is there. She still looks like every good thing Helena has never been able to be. She might even look more like that. Helena doesn’t think she really owns those boots.

_I don’t_ , Sarah says. _Cool, though, huh?_

“Yes,” Helena says. “Much cool.” Her voice is a thin rasp. She swallows. “They poured water down my throat.”

_I know. I was there_.

“No you weren’t. I needed you, _sestra_ , and you weren’t there.”

_Yeah I was, meathead,_ Sarah says, and she reaches out and taps Helena’s chest. _Here_.

Helena considers. “Pointless.”

_Cheeky._

Helena puffs up her cheeks and makes a rude sound through them, and Sarah laughs. Helena shifts a hand out from under the blanket and puts it on Sarah’s thigh; it doesn’t feel like anything much. She was hoping that it would be warm. Of course it wouldn’t be warm.

“I like it when you laugh,” she says, letting her hand fall with a _thump_ back onto the bed.

_Good_ , Sarah says. _I like laughing_. She smiles, warm and easy. Helena didn’t know she knew how to make Sarah do that. Maybe she stole it from Cosima. Or Alison. But that thought makes her sad, so she folds it into a butterfly and lets it go.

“Sarah,” she says, and: “ _sestra_. Can you tell me that—”

_You’re not going to die here._

“Thank you,” Helena sighs, and closes her eyes. She smells leather and starlight; if Sarah was actually here she would tell Helena that starlight doesn’t have a smell, but she would be wrong. It smells like cold air and colder metal. It smells like a distant bright light. Helena’s cheeks get a little warmer, and that’s when she realizes she’s crying.

_You’re not going to die here, meathead_ , Sarah tells her again. _You’ve got that butter plan, don’t you? You’re gonna get you and your baby out of here safe. You’re gonna get to go home._

“You were supposed to come for me,” Helena tells her, voice wavering. She is curled up into the smallest ball she can make; she’s still so cold.

_I did._

“You’re not real.”

_I will be._

Helena can’t answer that with words, so she just makes a desperate hurt sound and lets it go. She’s still crying. She’s been alone her whole life, but also this is the most alone she has ever been.

_I’m sorry I’m not her,_ Sarah says.

“It’s okay,” Helena says. “I am also sorry that I am not her.”

Sarah sighs. The sound goes on and on and on and then it’s just the wind, the cold desert wind that has not stopped blowing. It whistles through the grate above Helena’s head. It sounds like loneliness. It sounds like starlight. Helena lies there and sniffles, and shivers, and waits for her crying to stop.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed! :)


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